Darkness Lurks
by writepassed
Summary: They never prepared.. They never could have. Not even the Dragon Warrior and the Furious Five can save everyone, let alone themselves. RATED M FOR POTENTIAL SEXUAL THEMES, LANGUAGE AND VIOLENCE. Please review for future updates!


As the ruble settled to a thin layer of dust, an unknown figures' silhouette begun to take shape. It was seated in the center of the landscape, cross-legged, shut-eyed, and open-palmed. As its nasal breathing echoed amongst the silence, its right ear began to twitch. Suddenly, the breathing stopped; and its eyes darted open to a focused stare. In a blur, it disappeared. A feint scream could be heard in the distance, which ended with a cruel 'thud'.

_To find light in darkness is key; but to be light in darkness, is an accomplishment which exceeds all bounds._

**48 hours earlier**

The Jade Palace, although always a glorious site, was inevitably highlighted with the sun's glow. An ominous glow which bathed all beneath it in a golden sea of warmth; as though it were simply trying to taunt it with the darkness and destruction that was soon to come.

The residents of said valley had always assumed they were perfectly safe; "The Dragon Warrior and Furious Five will protect us, regardless of the threat." They'd all assumed. Blinded by their own confidence, the thought of a threat too immense for their over watchers never even poised their minds.

In the glowing palace, only an elder red panda could be found; the rest of the structures' inhabitants were away on 'official duty'. That is, Shifu had sent them away to deliver goods to an economically troubled part of China; a mission which, with the resources the group was given to deliver 2 days before, should only take another 24 hours.

The lone Master sighed; it seemed he'd been at a loss of sleep lately. Whether it was due to built-up stress from years and years of both teaching and training, or simply a temporary spell he was suffering from, only time would tell. Little did he know, time would tell in a matter of mere minutes; in a manner the Master could never bring himself to ignore.

As he sauntered his way through the palace corridors, he displayed a posture that was, to say the least, less 'healthy' than before. He slouched slightly, dragging his heels as he pulled himself along with his cane. '_Ugh.. I cannot live any longer with this exhaustion. Perhaps some meditation would help.._' he thought, entering the training hall.

Soon, he found himself seated in lotus position, he breathed with deep, echoing groans, trying to relax himself with his own bodily sounds. Soon, he found his mind had gone completely blank, free of images, thoughts, worries or even Kung Fu. He was at the deepest point of peace he'd been at in days.

To his dismay, the feeling lasted only seconds as many images uncontrollably started to flood his thoughts. They flashed one after another, horrors, suffering, pain. In both a visual and audible sense, he felt terrors strike him from all angles of his mind. Rapidly, his heart rate begun to accelerate, his muscles tensed and pulsated as his breath quickly started to come in short bursts. With both eyes clenched shut, he suffered through the pain of thousands. After a few more moments, his breathing stopped completely.

Minutes later, his eyes shot open with a long-awaited inhale. He fell forward with the magnitude of the vision, barely managing to catch himself with his hands. After another few seconds, he muttered "My…students.. you'd better…. hurry back." staring in between his hands as his sweat began to pool beneath him, falling more quickly with each passing exhausted breath.

**With the Dragon Warriors and the Furious Five**

They'd been making great time, they planned to be back by nightfall at the latest. Of course, with Tigress' constant need to run progressively further and further away from the group, it was either keep up, or never see the tiger again.

As the warrior ran ahead on all fours, she looked back for the first time in hours. Seeing the exhausted group which hung about 10 meters behind her, she began to slow her pace. Before long, she was only a comfortable 2 meters in front of the group.

Abruptly, she came to a complete stop. Po, who had been all too tired to pay any attention to where he was going, ran into her and fell onto his back.

"Ouf. Hey! What the he.." Suddenly the bewildered panda realized the peculiarity of her actions. He stared at her, as she gazed over the horizon of the grassy plains they'd been running along. "T-Tigress..? Is something wr-"

"Shh!" demanded the tiger in a hardy tone.

Po peered back for consolation, only to see several confused looks and shrugs.

With this, the wise orange and black striped master spat fear into the posse's hearts; "We must hurry." She stated coldly, before dropping to her hands and taking off even faster than before.

The rest of the group quickly complied after exerting several grunts, groans, sobs and sighs; Tigress' wisdom was not one to be judged as incoherent, there was a reason for her demand.

**At the Jade Palace**

Shifu, after what seemed like hours of breathless suffering, was finally beginning to regain his composure. He stood, erect, as he usually would. Not having to rely on his cane as he had recently been. Despite the bitter mood that had just forced its way through his mind, he was happy to have his old self back.

Walking down the hall, he started to shimmy through his vision; deciphering all he could from the bits of pictures and sound that now populated his head. '_I must resume my meditation, figure out what threat looms upon us, and plan accordingly._' He thought, mentally jotting these words down as though they were some sort of a checklist.

Having devised this plan, he headed outside. Once he found the center of the arena they'd once used for the unveiling of the Dragon Warrior, he sat back into his previous meditative form. It was far easier than the last time to find peace; In fact, he'd managed to find it within seconds of being seated.

**8 hours later**

It was now getting dark, within a few hours, it would have been almost impossible for the six warriors to find the Jade Palace at all; especially through the wooded 'shortcut' Tigress had decided they should take. A shortcut which favorably led them directly to the base of the Jade Palace. Tigress was the first to pass through the brush, a feint look of worry finding her face. She quickly established their location, then saw the Palace about 20 meters away; falling back into an all-out sprint toward the steps.

Moments later, the rest of the group came falling through the same spot Tigress did. Being awestruck with exhaustion, they all stumbled to the ground to rest before attempting to scale the palace.

Tigress couldn't help but run as fast as she could, she'd been sweating and couldn't deny the hospitality the breeze offered as it brushed along her fur. Trying to stay focused, she growled, drawing even more from her tired body, and rocketing up the last of the steps.

With her current speed, and the time she felt she'd already wasted, she couldn't afford to slow down to open the door. Instead, she simply crashed through it, throwing it off of its hinges and across the palace. It took her a few moments to notice Shifu in the center her view amidst the falling darkness. She then bowed, falling to one knee and trying to control her rapid breath.

With this, Shifu opened one eye; "What seems to be the problem, my student?"

Tigress looked up from her tired gaze, "I…. I sensed something was wrong.. We sprinted for 8 hours to get here." She struggled to say, allowing her gaze to fall once again.

"We..?" Shifu asked, glaring around the vicinity.

She looked around as well, she hadn't even noticed that the others weren't with her anymore. Nor did she know when they had strayed from each other.. It could have been miles back.

Her worry was soon put to rest as a single black and white paw arose from the edge of the top step. A feint huffing sound could be heard as Po was pushed over the final step by his four companions.

"St..Stairs." he muttered with a harsh tone of hatred.

The others couldn't restrain a feint chuckle, walking him through the broken doors of the palace.

"So-uhh.. Wh-what's going on, Ti?" asked Po as he gasped for air.

She looked over; the panda had now found his way to her side. "I believe something is wrong."

The panda stared at her in disbelief. "You… You.. _believe_ something is..wrong?" he asked with both annoyance and confusion.

This time, Shifu answered. "Well Po, she is not entirely wrong. A grave threat will be falling upon us within 2 days; I've had a vision."

Po sighed, "I'm.. I'm starting to get sick of this job." He joked.

Shifu rolled his eyes, "I'm sure you will also be happy to know, this threat will be far more dangerous than anything we've ever faced. It will inevitably lead to the deaths of at least a few."

Finally, one of the four bystanding warriors spoke, "Wait.. People are actually going to die?" the bug exclaimed, "Is there anything we can do?"

"Of course there's something we can do." Stated Tigress, looking over to Shifu for reassurance.

The master simply stared back blankly, "I'm.. I'm afraid not Tigress. This vision was different than any other I've had before.. Usually, if it's a negative vision, I will only get to see up until the point that someone is about to get killed; then I see a new 'part' of the vision. Meaning, of course, that those peoples' fate is still undecided.." He paused, mentally preparing himself to look back upon the new vision. "But.. This one.. This one actually showed the massacre of our population. At least 10 of them.. Perhaps more. On the up side, it didn't show any of you." With this, the six let out a small amount of built-up pressure. "Actually.. It didn't show any of you.. at all."

After a moment of silence, Viper spoke. "We just weren't here…? What does that mean?" she asked through petrified eyes.

Shifu squinted, "Well.. The way I interpret it, it could mean one of two things.. 'A', you could all be elsewhere.. perhaps protecting a different part of the valley. Or, 'B', you could all be…" the red panda could hardly bring himself to say the final word, "…dead."

* * *

_Will update soon if reviews are received! Also, I would like to apolig__ize for not countinuing Life's Full Of Surprises... I would love to continue it, and may someday, but for now, I cannot commit to such a lengthy story. This one will be quite a bit shorter, with far higher intensity/action. :)_


End file.
